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Ok so on many occasions at my LGS we keep having a issue with the warlord traits being useless in games we play. We roll for mission and get the kill point mission and roll the warlord is a scoring unit trait for example. So we have come up with choosing your codex or the main rulebook if it applies, and rolling then looking at all three columns and choosing what we want. Seems a bit more useful and no one seems to be getting shafted. This is a bit of a small house rule, but, just wanted to see what others think.

I would rather that a warlord's trait is not random in the fluff or otherwise the book and codexes would be bull to read.

I think that GW should have FAQed each codex with it's own warlord traits table, and kept the one in the BRB as a generic table for anyone.

I've played a few games where we have just chosen our warlord trait, and it works wonders. It only makes sense that someone like Dante, knows what he is good at before he goes to battle!

While I agree that each codex should have got traits in an FAQ, at least they are getting them in the new codexes.

We do the roll, then pick which table to use method.
Either the mission doesn't use objectives, or the warlord is a shooty one and doesn't want charge bonuses, but having a choice works for us.

But, codex-based tables would be just as bad. You'd still get shooty cc warlords, or fleet when you want to shoot, or even move-through-cover when on a bike... etc.
Even a table per cedex entry would be semi-useless. Eldar Aurarchs can be on foot, jetbike, with wings or jump pack. An outflanking deep-striker? No thanks.

While the pre-assigned traits can be fluffy some are more useful than others - take Typhus, fear is useless against a heck of a lot of opponents and even then with the high average LD in 40k its not great - I'd much rather be able to roll than to be stuck with it.

Perhaps have a pre defined trait for special characters but allow them to roll on the table if you wish to?

I wouldn't mind someone picking one out of the rulebook, if their codex doesn't have it's own yet. Because as you say, otherwise they are useless 80% of the time, whereas codex trait's are usually all at least moderately good

 Spyral wrote:
While the pre-assigned traits can be fluffy some are more useful than others - take Typhus, fear is useless against a heck of a lot of opponents and even then with the high average LD in 40k its not great - I'd much rather be able to roll than to be stuck with it.

Tis true. Some traits are flat out terrible compared with some of the other things you can get

That's what some players ended up doing in my area. 75% of the time I don't even remember what the roll was because it has little to no effect. Sometimes it's stupidly too effective, like giving the entire army stealth in ruins when you're playing on a table that consists mostly of ruins.

That one should probably be changed to "stealth in a terrain type of your choice" or cover in D3 terrain pieces improves by +1 for your units.

I don't think that getting your choice of three tables really helps, just because the tables are so lack luster. They should really be house ruled all together into new warlord trait tables.

This is one of the things that annoys me in 6th edition (along with psychic powers being random). It makes no sense that a commander wouldn't have some sort of idea what skills he was good at (or a psyker what spells he knows) until they are in sight of the enemy forces.

Half the time the trait has nothing to do with the synergy of your army, and occasionally it's instant win. There's nothing like one player getting re roll reserves when they don't have any and a melee player getting to make the game night fight. It should be points for abilities or choosable imo.